The £55m scheme to re-develop 40 acres of the Barbican area of the city includes residential tower blocks, offices and shops.

The inquiry is hearing an appeal by the New Barbican Committee after the Corporation of the City of London refused outline planning permission last year.

The committee, led by Eric Wilkins, is campaigning for the new development to include housing for up to 3,000 people.

Elevated walkways

The original 1944 Greater London Plan envisaged people commuting into the city from the leafier suburbs and earmarked the Barbican for commercial use.

Since then a number of different ideas have been put forward - but Mr Wilkins has been championing the idea to build homes in the area since 1953, worried that without an electorate there would be no local autonomy.

The blueprint before the inquiry includes plans to excavate down below the level of the railway to allow for car parking and warehousing.

Above ground, there will be a number of high rise blocks up to 20 storeys high, with offices below and flats and maisonettes above. There are plans for gardens and a lake and the whole area will be linked by elevated pedestrian walkways.

The plan centres round part of the remaining Roman wall and the medieval church of St Giles, only the shell of which was left standing after the blitz in August 1940 devastated the rest of the area.

The plan refused by the City of London Corporation originally included more housing for up to 5,000 residents described by the architects as "young professionals, likely to have a taste for Mediterranean holidays, French food and Scandinavian design".

It also included an exhibition hall, swimming pool and squash courts to be grouped together in one glass conservatory-style building shaped like a truncated pyramid.

One objection to the revised plans has been raised by the consulting engineer to St Paul's cathedral.

Mr C T Woolley said he was concerned the Barbican development could pose a serious risk to the cathedral's foundations.

But his concern was rejected by the committee's representative, Mr W B Harris.

He said: "Could anyone think of any serious developer putting in a plan that had 'the slightest chance of jeopardizing that great cathedral?'"

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